Dream dictionary: pause dream meanings

…I dream I am in the entrance hall of a huge castle. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all of stone. There is no one about, and throughout the vast building reigns an omnipotent hush. Confronting me is a broad spiral staircase, which I proceed to ascend. Up, up, up I go, and I am beginning to despair of ever arriving at the summit, when from far below comes the faint sound of footsteps. I pause to listen, and my blood turns to ice. There is something in those footsteps that suggests the grotesque and sinister. Panic-stricken, I assay to run, and my feet seem weighted with iron. The footsteps grow more and more audible. They are no longer walking but bounding — bounding prodigiously, three stairs at a time. Wild with terror, I struggle feebly on; the footsteps draw nearer and nearer — three stairs — two stairs…

…was lost in a blinding, deafening, suffocating rush through the air, a rush which terminated not in any conscious temporary stage, but in my suddenly finding myself in a thickly wooded glade, sitting close beside a waterfall and watching my recent conductor, who was standing on the brink of a deep pool immediately beneath the cascade, bending slowly backwards and forwards, and assuming, every now and then, the most grotesque and extravagant attitude. I was wondering what he meant by these attitudes, when he came to an abrupt pause, and, stooping slightly forward, craned his neck in my direction, and began contorting his face in every conceivable shape, till at last he appeared all mouth. Rushing at me he was about to swallow me, when I awoke. I had this dream prior to a time when my affairs were singularly prosperous all round, which condition of things was undoubtedly presaged…